Conventionally, a navigation apparatus is used for displaying a map of current vehicle position on a display unit with a vehicle position icon superposed thereon. When a user is navigated by the navigation system, the user is not always aware of a navigation route he/she is actually traveling only with a recognition of a final destination. In that case, the user may feel uncomfortable even with the current vehicle position displayed on top of the map of vicinity. For example, the uncertainty of a position currently approached, the uncertainty of a road currently traveling and/or whether the currently traveling road is the one that is notified in advance may cause uncomfortableness to the user. Japanese patent document JP-A-H09-222329 discloses and proposes a technique that displays a location name in a currently traveling direction together with the current vehicle position for enabling the user to overcome the uncomfortableness. Further, Japanese patent document JP-A-H08-35850 discloses and proposes a technique that displays a name of the currently traveling road.
However, even when the location name in the currently traveling direction and/or the currently traveling road name are displayed, there are cases that the user cannot grasp the direction of the traffic of the currently traveling road, that is, whether the vehicle is traveling up or down the street, whether the address number is increasing in the traveling direction or decreasing in the traveling direction or the like. More practically, even when the user has been told that he/she should travel a road A in a down direction, he/she does not have a clue to understand whether he/she is traveling in a correct direction on the road if he/she does not know the name of the location in the traveling direction (e.g., the location name displayed on the map).